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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22973209">Shades of blue</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Writing_mermaid/pseuds/Writing_mermaid'>Writing_mermaid</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Bucky Barnes Bingo [4]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Bucky Barnes - Fandom, Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Admire, After, Art, BBB 2020, BBB Fluffathon, Bucky Barnes Bingo, Bucky Barnes Bingo 2020, Bucky Barnes bingo fluffathon, Chocolate, F/M, Model AU, SSB, Star Spangled Bingo, Star Spangled Bingo 2020, bbb, cutie, fluffathon, nuzzle, ssb 2020</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-03-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 15:02:18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,095</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22973209</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Writing_mermaid/pseuds/Writing_mermaid</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>When a young artist is fascinated by the shade of blue in the eyes of the posing model.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>James "Bucky" Barnes/Reader, Peggy Carter/Steve Rogers</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Bucky Barnes Bingo [4]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1455724</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>BBB Special Events, Star Spangled Bingo 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Shades of blue</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Star Spangled Bingo : Model AU<br/>Bucky Barnes Bingo Fluffathon : Admire, Art, After, Nuzzle, Cutie, Chocolate.</p><p>Song of the title : Shades of Cool - Lana Del Rey</p><p>Don't forget that feedback is important</p><p>Buy me a ☕ : https://ko-fi.com/darknessturnsmeon</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  
</p><p> </p><p>Steve Rogers walks through the room, slaloming between the easels of his “students” of the day, while looking at their paper sheets. In the meantime, he looks at the model, his best friend James Barnes, who accepted to pose a few times a week because he needed the money for college. Steve understood why, because he too, had to look for a job to pay for his school fees. When he found that job, he knew it was the perfect one as he is majoring in arts.</p><p>Concerning James Barnes, rather Bucky, he needed it to continue his literature studies, his parents still had to pay for his five little sisters’ studies, and he couldn’t ask for them to have one more loan, since he lost his last job. When Steve told him about the model job, he frowned and said that he would try, even if he doesn’t think that this would be his thing, but he needed to eat and pay for his books. That’s how, for the first time in his life, Bucky finds himself naked in a room full of strangers, drawing him.</p><p>Sitting front row, Y/N Y/L/N is studying the handsome model’s eyes color. She cannot decide what color they are. Blue, definitely blue, but what shade ? Because it seems that the color changes when the light changes. At some point his eyes are bright blue, a minute later they can have the color of the sea, and a few seconds later, the color of a stormy sky. She’s concentrated on his face, and his face only, the rest of his body doesn’t interest her, just his face, his blue eyes, his red and kissable lips, that three days stubble, his short chestnut hair, her charcoal scratching the surface of the white sheet in front of her.</p><p>Steve stops by the Y/H/C haired girl sitting at the front row. He admires her work. Unlike a lot of people in the room who drew Bucky full or his body, or some parts, she’s only drawing his face. Steve looks at the precise lines she’s drawing. She seems to be mesmerized by Bucky’s eyes and Steve can understand why, his best friend’s eyes are sort of a mystery to themselves. Her gaze doesn’t live his and it seems that Bucky noticed. The way she looks at him above the easel makes Steve think about that scene from Titanic where Jack draws a naked Rose like as she says, “one of his French girls”. Steve works here for a few months now, and it’s the first time that he sees her. She puts down her black charcoal, searching for a blue one.</p><p> </p><p>“This is an amazing work”, Steve suddenly says, making her froze.</p><p>“Thank you”, she answers, slightly blushing at the compliment.</p><p>“You really managed to capture everything of his face. His gaze, his mouth, nose, freckles. Though, you seem to be in trouble with the color of his eyes. I must admit that I myself never managed to find the good color.”</p><p>“How do you know that I have trouble with finding the model’s eye color ?”, Y/N asks, curious to know.</p><p>“Oh, Bucky is my best friend, and he was my very first model when I started to draw when I was a kid. Even now, when I happen to draw him, I still don’t find the right color, so I make drawing of my girlfriend Peggy or of landscapes, that’s less complicated”, Steve explains. “I’m Steve Rogers by the way”, he adds, extending his hand.</p><p>“Y/N Y/L/N”, she replies. “Sorry, I won’t shake your hand, or you’ll have charcoal everywhere.”</p><p>“Don’t worry, I’m used to it. Anyway, if you want to, I can introduce you to him after this session, which will be finished in fifteen minutes”, Steve adds, checking his watch.</p><p>“Thank you, Steve”, she smiles at him.</p><p> </p><p>The last fifteen minutes pass like a blink of an eye and Steve thanks everyone for attending to his lesson and listening to his advice. Y/N starts to clean her easel, closes her sketchbook and puts her charcoals back in their box. Meanwhile, Bucky slips back the robe that he abandoned two hours ago on a stool next to him. At the second Y/N left the room to wash her hands, Bucky walks to Steve, who’s cleaning the leftovers.</p><p> </p><p>“Who’s she ?”, he asks his blond friend.</p><p>“New one, just like you. Very good one though. She’s the only one that drew your face and not your body. I even saw one or two people very busy to draw you…”</p><p>“Please no, this is really embarrassing”, Bucky face palms himself.</p><p>“You should wait for her to come back; I think she has something to ask you. I told her that you were my best friend and that I can introduce you to her.”</p><p>“Please don’t tell me she wanna draw my wienie”, Bucky whines.</p><p>“Who wants to draw your wienie ?”, a beautiful brunette says, entering the room, making a beeline to Steve before kissing his lips.</p><p>“A new girl, very good artist, and I really don’t think she wants to draw his wienie”, Steve explains.</p><p> </p><p>Steve tells Peggy about Y/N and her skills, saying he hoped that she would be okay to show her work to them. Y/N finally comes back in the room. Steve introduces her to Peggy and Bucky.</p><p> </p><p>“Do you think you can show us your work ? If you want to of course.”</p><p>“Yes, sure, after all this is an art class and you are the model”, Y/N says, motioning to Bucky.</p><p> </p><p>She opens her sketchbook again, revealing a few previous drawings before she finally found the one of Bucky she made barely an hour ago.</p><p> </p><p>“This is really amazing”, Peggy whispers, as she’s afraid of saying this out loud.</p><p> </p><p>Bucky looks at the drawing, speechless. He cannot believe how a drawing could look like him so much. It’s almost like he’s looking at himself in the mirror. Everything his perfect, every line, every freckle, his three days stumble, everything is there.</p><p> </p><p>“May I ask you something ?”, Y/N questions, making Bucky getting out of his bubble.</p><p>“Yes, sure.”</p><p>“Would you accept to pose for me ? I mean not here but in private, I wanted to work on your eyes and it’s not possible in a room full of people. Of course, I will compensate you for your time.”</p><p>“I… I don’t know, it’s the first time I’m doing this, isn’t it unprofessional ?”, he asks Steve, turning to him.</p><p>“Not necessarily, you’re free to do what you want. You can pose for Y/N if you want to.”</p><p>“So yes, I’d love to”, Bucky says, turning to the young Y/H/C haired woman in front of him.</p><p>“Great”, she exclaims, “this is my phone number”, she adds, handing him a little piece of paper with her phone number.</p><p> </p><p>And then, a week later, Bucky finds himself in a tiny apartment, under the rooftop. It’s a very small place but Y/N managed to make it her home. She even have sort of a balcony.</p><p> </p><p>“Please make yourself comfortable”, she says from the kitchenette, “I’m coming as soon as the tea is ready.”</p><p> </p><p>Bucky looks at the room, it’s a medium open space. In a corner, there is Y/N’s bed, a pile of book at its feet, not far from it, her desk, with a laptop and a few pictures of her friends and family, he supposes. In the middle of the room, there’s a couch and a tiny red table facing a small television. In the opposite corner of the bed, there’s an easel, a stool, a tiny chest of drawers and drawing material. A ginger cat walks along the window’s low wall before scratching the pane.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, that’s my cat, Oliver, can you open the window for him please ?”, Y/N asks Bucky.</p><p> </p><p>Bucky nods and lets the cat in. Oliver rises his head towards Bucky, smells his hand and purrs when Bucky scratches him behind his hears.</p><p> </p><p>“Here we are”, Y/N says, coming back in the room, carrying a tray with two mugs, a tea pot, different flavors of tea, and chocolate biscuits, along with a bowl of milk for Oliver. “Please, serve yourself”, she adds, while putting down Oliver’s bowl.</p><p> </p><p>They talk about everything and nothing, whilst drinking the tea when Bucky finally comes back to the main subject.</p><p> </p><p>“So, tell me exactly why you want me to do for you ?”</p><p>“Well, as I told you, I’d like you to pose for me. See last week during Steve’s lesson, I draw your face and I had a problem for your eyes. I mean, the light changed so many times and your eyes color changed with it. I’d like to find the best light to do them justice. Your eyes are really unique.”</p><p> </p><p>The next week, Bucky comes back at Y/N’s apartment, to find her painting on her balcony when he enters her home. A few minutes later, he finds himself sitting face to face with her, under the natural light. It takes a few hours for Y/N to make a new portrait of Bucky with the accurate eye color. But then, it became a habit for the two to have posing seances. First, she works on his eyes, then she moves to his nose, lips, chin, hair after a few seances. During it, they both start to know each other, the more time they spend together, the more they start to fall for one another.</p><p> </p><p>Y/N decides after a few weeks that she’d like to move on to his body if he’s still okay to pose for her. Bucky agrees, without admitting yet that he loves spending time with her. And when Bucky poses half naked, Y/N notices what she didn’t during Steve’s class, Bucky’s broad shoulders, his perfect abs, his strong arms, his beautiful hands. Oh, his hands, Y/N starts to think about what they would feel on her body if he used them on her. <em>Oh jeez</em>, she thinks, <em>I</em> <em>start to have sinful thoughts, this is really no good</em>.</p><p>One evening, after a long day of posing, Bucky sits on one of the low walls of Y/N’s balcony, one of his legs hanging in the air, leaning his back on one of the walls. The days has been quite hot, and the evening is still warm. Y/N comes back from the kitchen with two beers, Bucky is partially turned away, Oliver on his lap. Y/N smiles at the sight, thinking that she could get used to this.</p><p> </p><p>“Yes, you’re a cutie”, Bucky is patting the cat’s back. “You’re the best kitty in the world.”</p><p>“Don’t start this with him, he’s gonna beg for it the next time you’ll be here.”</p><p>“I don’t matter”, Bucky says, “I like this little fellow, after all, he accepted me here, he didn’t have to at first, he could have thought that I would still his pretty mom from him.”</p><p> </p><p>Y/N blushes at Bucky’s word. She sits in front of him, handing him a beer. She mirrors his position on the wall while the sun is going down. In the sunset light, Bucky’s gaze is more intense than in any other light she has seen him before. Oliver jumps of Bucky’s leg when Y/N moves closer to him. Y/N turns her head to the setting sun, her left hand on her leg. Bucky looks at her, she’s glowing in the sunlight and Bucky finds her more beautiful than he did before. She was so adorable with those stains of paint. Bucky moves closer, he wants to kiss her so bad. He extends his hand to lace his fingers with Y/N’s one. Y/N turns her face back to Bucky, their gaze meeting. Bucky leans towards Y/N who meets him halfway. Their lips touch softly, Y/N slides a little closer, climbing on Bucky’s lap. Once there, she deepens the kiss, sliding her fingers into Bucky’s hair. After a few minutes, she pulls away, catching her breath, her forehead against his.</p><p> </p><p>“What about now ?”, Bucky asks.</p><p> </p><p>Y/N doesn’t answer, she just gets up and grabs Bucky’s hand to lead him to her bed.</p><p>The next morning, Bucky wakes up nuzzling Y/N’s hair, her bare back to his bare chest. He props his head on his elbow, looking at her peacefully sleeping, silently thanking Steve for the model job.</p>
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